In-Game Benchmarks

Now we finally get into the in game performance and that is the main reason people pick up a new video card. To test things out I ran through our new benchmark suite that tests 8 games at three different resolutions (1080p, 1440p, and 4k). Most of the games tested have been run at the highest detail setting and a mid-range detail setting to get a look at how turning things up hurts performance and to give an idea of whether turning detail down from max will be beneficial for frame rates. Cyberpunk 2077 is also tested with Super Sampling (DLSS/FSR/XeSS). In total, each video card is tested 60 times and that makes for a huge mess of results when you put them all together. To help with that I like to start with these overall playability graphs that take all of the results and give an easier-to-read result. I have one for each of the three resolutions and each is broken up into four FPS ranges. Under 30 FPS is considered unplayable, over 30 is playable but not ideal, over 60 is the sweet spot, over 120 FPS is for high refresh rate monitors, and 240 helps show the performance ideal for the latest higher refresh displays.

So how did the RX 9060 XT Challenger OC do? At 1080p all of the results came in over 60 FPS with a majority of those being over 120 FPS as well. It has 4 over 240 FPS, 9 in the 120-239 FPS range, and 5 between 60 FPS and 119 FPS. At 1440p we see one result drop down below 60 FPS but still, everything else was over 60 FPS. There was just 1 over 240 FPS this time, 9 between 120 and 239 FPS, 7 between 60 and 119 FPS, and the one between 30 and 59 FPS. Even at 4k, the RX 9060 XT Challenger OC, with its 16GB of VRAM does still hold its own even though it isn’t designed for it at all. 11 results were over 60 FPS and the other 7 were between 30 FPS and 59 FPS. AMD has designed the RX 9060 XT to be able to handle the most demanding games at 1080p and it does that, but that also translates to good and sometimes passable capabilities at 1440p and 4k.

To get a better look at some of the cards that are the closest competition to the RX 9060 XT Challenger OC I have averaged out all of our results at each of the three resolutions tested. This gives us a more detailed look at the overall standings and the RX 9060 XT Challenger OC comes in below the RX 7700 XT and the RX 6750 XT. The RX 6750 XT is especially close in performance to the RX 9060 XT Challenger OC across the board, being just .7 of an FPS behind it at 4k for example.

Of course, I have all of the actual in game results as well for anyone who wants to sort through the wall of graphs below. The averages above already paint the picture of what you will see for the most part. The RX 9060 XT Challenger OC comes in just below the RX 7700 and ahead of the RX 6750 XT consistently. There are a few games where it jumps out in front of the RTX 5060 Ti and other times where it is well below. But overall that is what you can expect.

Another new addition to my testing was a few additional tests using Cyberpunk 2077. This is one of only a few games that support most of the tech from all three of the GPU companies. So I did tests at medium and ultra detail while having Super Sampling on for all of the cards. Using whatever the latest and greatest is supported. In this case, I tested with FSR. Just a note here, the AMD cards only allowed FSR when running windowed mode whereas Nvidia only performed well in fullscreen mode. The big thing I wanted to see here is how FSR improved performance at ultra detail, especially at 4k. The RX 9060 XT Challenger OC struggled at 4k ultra detail with just an average of 32 FPS, using FSR however it jumped up to 63 FPS, not only doubling the performance but also going from rough to playable. 1440p goes from 74 FPS up to 115 and at 1080p it went from 117 up to 191 FPS.